Dr. Thomas Kindt
Dr. Kindt reported on some organizational and staff changes within the Division of Intramural Research (DIR). Among its 1350 employees, DIR has 97 tenured scientists and 23 tenure-track investigators. There has been an extensive building program underway. The Twinbrook III facility in Rockville is now complete and DIR is occupying the building. Building 33 on the Bethesda campus is currently under construction and will have a great deal of biocontainment capacity. DIR hope to occupy it early next year. New biodefense facilities are planned at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana and near Fort Detrick in Frederick.
Dr. Kindt highlighted some of DIR’s top research advances during the past year; a plague infection model has been perfected; a SARS mouse model has been developed; discovery that T-regulatory cells suppress the immune responses that are directed against HIV; modified vaccines are effective for persons who cannot receive the smallpox virus; a new pathway of nerve cell killing opens possibilities for treatment of the prion diseases; IL-2 successfully treats Crohn’s Disease; discovery that there’s a component of hypervirulent tuberculosis that inhibits innate immune response; a comprehensive report on mutations in interferon gamma and the syndromes they cause; autophagy is a key pathway in immune-regulated cell death.